This week saw the opening of the trial of former New York state senate
majority leader Joseph Bruno for honest services fraud. According to
the assistant U.S. attorney presenting the
case, as quoted
in the Albany Times-Union, although a
criminal trial, "this case is about conflicts of
interest. It's about failure to
disclose conflicts of interest, and it's about concealment of
information that...
Once again, a local government official's attempt to use a charity to
get around campaign finance laws has blown up in his face. According to
an
article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, an Atlanta council
member was fined $25,000 by a state court for failing to register a
foundation (named after himself) and failing to maintain financial
records for it.
Update: October 16, 2009 (see below)
In his New York Times legal affairs column
today, Adam Liptak focused on what is known as "honest services
fraud," which is actually part of a definition of "scheme or artifice to
defraud" in the federal mail and wire fraud statute (before reading on,
please read my earlier blog
post...